Abstract
BackgroundAsthma comorbidity has been correlated with poor asthma control, increased health services use, and decreased quality of life. Managing it improves these outcomes. Little is known about the amount of different types of comorbidity associated with asthma and how they vary by age.Methodology/Principal FindingsThe authors conducted a population study using health administrative data on all individuals living in Ontario, Canada (population 12 million). Types of asthma comorbidity were quantified by comparing physician health care claims between individuals with and without asthma in each of 14 major disease categories; results were adjusted for demographic factors and other comorbidity and stratified by age. Compared to those without asthma, individuals with asthma had higher rates of comorbidity in most major disease categories. Most notably, they had about fifty percent or more physician health care claims for respiratory disease (other than asthma) in all age groups; psychiatric disorders in individuals age four and under and age 18 to 44; perinatal disorders in individuals 17 years and under, and metabolic and immunity, and hematologic disorders in children four years and under.Conclusion/SignificanceAsthma appears to be associated with significant rates of various types of comorbidity that vary according to age. These results can be used to develop strategies to recognize and address asthma comorbidity to improve the overall health of individuals with asthma.
Highlights
Asthma has been associated with various types of comorbidity, from coronary artery to psychiatric disease, that place significant burden on patients [1,2,3]
Individuals with asthma were younger (32 years compared to 38 years), more likely to be female, and more likely to have a co-diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) than those without asthma (Table 1)
Higher comorbidity was found for most of the 14 disease categories but was highest (50% or greater) for respiratory disease; psychiatric disorders; metabolic and immunity disorders; hematologic disorders; and perinatal disorders (p,0.001 for each disease category)
Summary
Asthma has been associated with various types of comorbidity, from coronary artery to psychiatric disease, that place significant burden on patients [1,2,3]. Asthma comorbidity has been correlated with poor asthma control, increased health care use, and decreased quality of life, and managing it has been shown to significantly improve these outcomes [4,5,6,7,8,9]. There is still little known and relatively little attention paid to diagnosing and treating asthma comorbidity [10] This is in contrast to other chronic disease comorbidity–such as renal disease among individuals with diabetes and hypercholesterolemia among individuals with coronary artery disease–that have been well studied and are routinely identified and treated . Asthma comorbidity has been correlated with poor asthma control, increased health services use, and decreased quality of life Little is known about the amount of different types of comorbidity associated with asthma and how they vary by age
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